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2004
Sympathy and Approbation in Hume and Smith: A
Solution to the Other Rational Species Problem
David M. Levy
Sandra J. Peart
University of Richmond, [email protected]
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Part of the History of Philosophy Commons
Recommended Citation
Levy, David M., and Sandra J. Peart. "Sympathy And Approbation In Hume And Smith: A Solution To The Other Rational Species
Problem."Economics and Philosophy 20, no. 2 (1999): 331-49. doi:10.1017/S0266267104000239.
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Economics and Philosophy, 20 (2004) 331–349
DOI: 10.1017/S0266267104000239
C Cambridge University Press
Copyright SYMPATHY AND APPROBATION IN
HUME AND SMITH: A SOLUTION TO
THE OTHER RATIONAL SPECIES
PROBLEM
DAVID M. LEVY
George Mason University
SANDRA J. PEART
Baldwin-Wallace College
David Hume’s sympathetic principle applies to physical equals. In his
account, we sympathize with those like us. By contrast, Adam Smith’s
sympathetic principle induces equality. We consider Hume’s “other rational
species” problem to see whether Smith’s wider sympathetic principle would
alter Hume’s conclusion that “superior” beings will enslave “inferior”
beings. We show that Smith introduces the notion of “generosity,” which
functions as if it were Hume’s justice even when there is no possibility of
contract.
1. INTRODUCTION
This paper examines a key implication of the different conceptions of
sympathy and the approbation associated with sympathy in the writings
of David Hume and Adam Smith. For Hume, sympathy is an empathy we
feel for those like us and hence we are motivated to obtain the praise or
approbation of those with whom we sympathize. In Hume’s construction
there is a direct link from sympathy to motivation because sympathy is
An earlier version was presented at the 18th-Century Scottish Studies Society, Arlington
meeting in June 2001. We benefited from conversations with and comments from Gordon
Schochet, Roger Emerson and Silvia Sebastiana. A letter from Leon Montes helped sharpen
the argument. The readers for the journal contributed to the output. We remain responsible
for the errors and omissions.
331
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DAVID M. LEVY AND SANDRA J. PEART
reflected self-love. By contrast, in Smith’s construction sympathy is an act
of imagination which only habit makes motivational. The abstraction by
our imagination means we earn the approbation (or disapprobation) from
those unlike as well as those like us. In Smith’s account we can obtain
approbation as we step outside ourselves and regard our own actions
dispassionately.
We consider the nature of sympathy and the source of approbation
in Hume and Smith and turn to two problems posed in Hume’s Enquiry
Concerning the Principles of Morals. The first is the famous Sensible Knave
problem from the closing pages of his Enquiry – see, e.g., Gauthier (1979),
Nielsen (1982). Focusing exclusively on physical equals, Hume suggests
here that although it is in the interest of everyone to have rules of justice
which make trade possible, it may be in the interest of the “sensible
knave” to violate the rules of justice now and again. He then considers
two attenuations to the “sensible knave” problem. One of these is a moral
attenuation; today, the other is called an evolutionary one.
Second, Hume asks how we would treat a species of rational creatures,
inferior in mind and body to humans, who compete with us for resources.
His answer is that there would be no justice (or trade) between us and
them. Instead of trading for what we want, we would simply take. Hume
sees no way to escape this conclusion. As evidence to support his case,
he points to the treatment of native peoples by Europeans who possessed
advanced military technology.
We then ask, why the “sensible knave” attenuations do not hold for
Hume in the case of inferior rational beings, and we consider whether
Smith’s conception of sympathy yields a different answer to the “other
rational species” question. We argue that Smith’s wider construction of
sympathy, in which we come to judge our conduct as others would judge
it, allows Hume’s moral attenuation to the sensible knave problem to be
applied to the other rational species. We suggest that a famous passage
in Moral Sentiments be read as Smith’s answer to one form of the other
rational species problem.
Hume’s argument stops at the sense of justice required to honor
contracts. When Smith distinguished his construction from Hume’s, he
noted that generosity shares foundations with justice. Generosity can apply
in a context in which narrowly defined justice cannot. Smith’s distinction
between generosity and humanity corresponds to the distinction in the
modern commentary between sympathy and empathy/fellow-feeling.
Smith described as “generous” the behavior of someone who, without
a contractual obligation to do so, would save people at some material cost.
Our argument in what follows starts from Hume’s position that
ordinary exchange may be considered as a one-shot prisoner’s dilemma
relation, which purely “rational” action of the standard homo economicus
kind cannot solve. One solution to this predicament (though not the only
SYMPATHY AND APPROBATION IN HUME AND SMITH
333
solution), stems from the existence of a desire for approbation by trading
parties. Since approbation accrues in reciprocal situations, it may induce
both agents to trade rather than grab. In the Hume/Smith account, the
desire for approbation is a fact of the human condition, so wherever
approbation is present, exchange and the division of labor are possible
in a way that would not be otherwise possible. But Smith and Hume differ
on the nature of approbation and, as a consequence, on the domain of
approbation-relevant relations. Both agree that approbation applies only
in conditions of existential equality, but for Smith this condition embodies
all of those we might imagine are human, whereas in Hume it extends
only to those who are not “strictly inferior”.1
2. SYMPATHY IN HUME AND SMITH2
For Hume, sympathy requires entering into the sentiments of others,
something we can do only if the other is similar. Thus, in Book II, ch. xi
(“Love of Fame”) of the Treatise, Hume holds that our ability to sympathize
requires physical and intellectual similarity among people:
Now ’tis obvious, that nature has preserv’d a great resemblance among all
human creatures, and that we never remark any passion or principle in
others, of which, in some degree or other, we may not find a parallel in
ourselves. The case is the same with the fabric of mind, as with that of
the body. However the parts may differ in shape or size, their structure and
composition are in general the same. There is a very remarkable resemblance,
which preserves itself amidst all their variety; and this resemblance must very
much contribute to make us enter into the sentiments of others, and embrace them
with facility and pleasure. (Hume 1739–1740: 318, emphasis added)
The sentence we emphasize is at the foundation of the difference between
Hume and Smith on sympathy and approbation. Hume pointed to this
1
2
As such, the analysis in Section 6 below is a result of Smith’s deep analytical egalitarianism.
For a broader discussion of the egalitarianism that characterized classical economics, see
Peart and Levy (2005).
There is a recent history of attempts to incorporate sympathy and/or empathy into
economic models, e.g., Arrow (1977) and the literature discussed in Sugden (2002). The
nineteenth-century controversy over the shape of the sympathetic gradient – concern for
family relative to strangers – has received less attention. We explore how a theologized
natural selection by which “inferior” people were transformed into “superior” ones was
held to be more important than sympathy with actually-existing people (Peart and Levy
2003, 2005). The role of sympathy in TMS is noted frequently in this nineteenth-century
debate. Haakonssen (2002: xxiii) notes that “The Theory of Moral Sentiments did, however,
have an independent legacy, though one that is ill charted. Together with the work of Hume,
it had established sympathy as a central moral concept for any attempt at a naturalistic
ethics, and we find this reflected – though with few explicit acknowledgments . . . by the
utilitarians of the nineteenth century.” In the utilitarian-influenced evolutionary ethical
discussions, citations to Smith or Moral Sentiments are explicit, e.g., Erasmus Darwin (1803:
122–3), Herbert Spencer (1851: 96), T. H. Huxley (1934: 88).
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DAVID M. LEVY AND SANDRA J. PEART
difference himself in a famous letter to Smith in which Hume insisted
that “Sympathetical Passion is a reflex Image of the principal”.3 In
Hume’s system, when we sympathize, we share feelings, and consequently
sympathy is self-love discounted by reflection.4 Humean sympathy is akin
to empathy: We enter in the passions of others for Hume, and we can do
so because these people think and look like us.5
For Hume, human beings are made moral because they are motivated
by the approbation that they receive from others with whom they
sympathize:
But beside these original causes of pride and humility, there is a secondary
one in the opinions of others, which has an equal influence on the affections.
Our reputation, our character, our name are considerations of vast weight
and importance; and even the other causes of pride; virtue, beauty and riches;
have little influence, when not seconded by the opinions and sentiments of
others. In order to account for this phaenomenon ’twill be necessary to take
some compass, and first explain the nature of sympathy. (Hume 1739–40: 316)
3
4
5
Hume’s letter of July 28, 1759 in Smith (1977: 43): “I am told that you are preparing a
new Edition, and propose to make some Additions and Alternations, in order to obviate
Objections. I shall use the Freedom to propose one, which, if it appears to be of any Weight,
you may have in your Eye. I wish you had more particularly and fully prov’d, that all
kinds of Sympathy are necessarily Agreeable. This is the Hinge of your system . . . And
indeed, as the Sympathetical Passion is a reflex Image of the principal, it must partake
of its Qualities, and be painful where that is so.” Lindgren (1974: 21–2): “The doctrine
of sympathy is typically thought to be simple and straightforward. The most popular
interpretation is that sympathy is the same as empathy. . . . First, were sympathy merely
empathy it would be the same as approval. This view, first suggested by David Hume
(letter to Smith, July 28, 1759), was rejected in a note added by Smith to the third [second]
edition of the Moral Sentiments.” Haakonssen (2002: xiv): “this pleasure [of understanding
another’s sentiments] is distinct from whatever sentiments we may have about the object of
our sympathetic understanding, sentiments which may be either pleasing or displeasing.
It seems that Smith himself only came to complete clarity about this matter in the light of
David Hume’s criticism of his handling of it in the first edition . . . ”
Montes (2003) quotes Smith (1759: VII. iii. I.§4) denying that sympathy is self-love and
argues that this is a pre-emptive response to Reid’s criticism. This suggests that Reid
conflated Hume’s sympathy with Smith’s. A related interpretation is found in Hirschman’s
1977 assertion that in Smith’s account there is really only one good thing; higher material
income and higher approbation are always found together. “In the passage of The Theory of
Moral Sentiments that was cited above, Adam Smith then takes the final reductionist step
of turning two into one: the drive for economic advantage is no longer autonomous but
becomes a mere vehicle for the desire for consideration. By the same token, however, the
noneconomic drives, powerful as they are, are all made to feed into the economic ones
and do nothing but reinforce them, being thus deprived of their erstwhile independent
existence” (Hirshman 1977: 109).
Schochet (2001) argues that the difference between Hume’s and Smith’s use of “sympathy”
marks the transition from an older to a new use. “Sympathy” had traditionally been
associated with musical vibrations where physical similarity was important for generating
mutual vibration. Musical theory and renaissance magic are connected in Walker (1958). A
glance at the indices in Thorndike (1923–58) reveals hundreds of references to “sympathetic
magic” and “sympathy.”
SYMPATHY AND APPROBATION IN HUME AND SMITH
335
Such approbation comes from people who are like them:6
Accordingly we find, that where, beside the general resemblance of our
natures, there is any peculiar similarity in our manners, or character, or
country, or language, it facilitates the sympathy. The stronger the relation is
betwixt ourselves and any object, the more easily does the imagination make
the transition, and convey to the related idea the vivacity of conception, with
which we always form the idea of our own person. (Hume 1739–40: 318)
Approbation (and disapprobation) from those we are unlike is less
powerful as a motivating force:
Among these phenomena we may esteem it a very favourable one to our
present purpose, that tho’ fame in general be agreeable, yet we receive a
much greater satisfaction from the approbation of those, whom we ourselves
esteem and approve of, than of those, whom we hate and despise. In like
manner we are principally mortify’d with the contempt of persons, upon
whose judgment we set some value, and are, in a great measure, indifferent
about the opinions of the rest of mankind. But if the mind receiv’d from
any original instinct a desire of fame and aversion to infamy, fame and
infamy wou’d influence us without distinction; and every opinion, according
as it were favourable or unfavourable, wou’d equally excite that desire or
aversion. The judgment of a fool is the judgment of another person, as well as
that of a wise man, and is only inferior in its influence on our own judgment.
(Hume 1739–40: 321)
For approbation to be most effective, it confirms our own sense of selfworth:
The praises of others never give us much pleasure, unless they concur with
our own opinion, and extol us for those qualities, in which we chiefly excel. A
mere soldier little values the character of eloquence: A gownman of courage:
A bishop of humour: Or a merchant of learning. Whatever esteem a man
may have for any quality, abstractedly consider’d; when he is conscious he is
not possest of it; the opinions of the whole world will give him little pleasure
in that particular, and that because they never will be able to draw his own
opinion after them. (Hume 1739–40: 322)
Since approbation is external to the individual receiving it, people may
escape disapprobation by leaving kin and kith behind:
Nothing is more usual than for men of good families, but narrow
circumstances, to leave their friends and country, and rather seek their
livelihood by mean and mechanical employments among strangers, than
6
“We may conclude, that relations are requisite to sympathy, not absolutely consider’d as
relations, but by their influence in converting our ideas of the sentiments of others into the
very sentiments, by means of the association betwixt the idea of their persons, and that of
our own. For here the relations of kindred and contiguity both subsist; but not being united
in the same persons, they contribute in a less degree to the sympathy.” (Hume 1739–40:
322–3)
336
DAVID M. LEVY AND SANDRA J. PEART
among those, who are acquainted with their birth and education. We shall
be unknown, say they, where we go. No body will suspect from what family
we are sprung. We shall be remov’d from all our friends and acquaintance,
and our poverty and meanness will by that means sit more easy upon us.
In examining these sentiments, I find they afford many very convincing
arguments for my present purpose. (Hume 1739–40: 322)
From this, Hume infers that the amount of approbation (or disapprobation)
we obtain from those with whom we sympathize, “depends on the relation
of the object to ourselves”:
we are most uneasy under the contempt of persons, who are both related to us
by blood, and contiguous in place. Hence we seek to diminish this sympathy
and uneasiness by separating these relations, and placing ourselves in a contiguity to strangers, and at a distance from relations. (Hume 1739–40: 322)
By contrast, Smith holds that sympathy is something akin to an estimation
procedure in which we imaginatively exchange positions while preserving
our consciousness. In Smith’s account we sympathize even with those who
are very unlike us, including the dead and the insane. Without reflection
and education, we may very well get bizarre results – in Smith’s example,
we think the problem of death is the cold, lonely grave and the gnawing
vermin – but we sympathize nonetheless. With education and reflection,
we can learn that the problem of death is really the “awful futurity.”
Sympathy is Smith’s device to connect our concerns with those of
others by imagining how others see us.7 Our understanding of others
becomes important to us. In this construction, sympathy entails an act
of imagination.8 It is not simply “fellow feeling” or some immediate
experience of what is in another’s mind. While it is an act of imagination,
it has predictable properties; in this it is similar to what we might, today,
call an estimate:
Every man, as the Stoics used to say, is first and principally recommended
to his own care; and every man is certainly, in every respect, fitter and abler
7
8
Harman (1986: 14): “There is an interesting irony in the way in which Hume’s use of the
term ‘sympathy’ leads Smith to his own very different theory, a theory that in my view
is much better than Hume’s at accounting for moral phenomenology. Smith’s criticism of
Hume’s use of the term ‘sympathy’ is not a serious one. It is of no importance whatsoever
whether the meaning that Hume gives to the term ‘sympathy’ is the ordinary one . . . The
irony is that taking Hume’s term seriously leads Smith to a more accurate account of
morality. A purely verbal point yields a powerful substantive theory.”
Levy (1995) defends this reading in part by noting that early in TMS Smith considers
how individuals sympathize with the dead and the insane. They erroneously impute
unhappiness to the insane. Sudgen (2002: 76) quotes the insanity evidence against
Fontaine’s (1997) account of the sympathetic individual “becoming” the other person.
Haakonssen (2002: xiv): “We spontaneously see people as purposeful and this is the central
act of the practical imagination. Smith calls this sympathy and, as mentioned above, this
was a troublesome terminology. Smith does not mean that we, when we think that we see
another person’s point in doing something, accept or approve of that point.”
SYMPATHY AND APPROBATION IN HUME AND SMITH
337
to take care of himself than of any other person. Every man feels his own
pleasures and his own pains more sensibly than those of other people. The
former are the original sensations; the latter the reflected or sympathetic
images of those sensations. The former may be said to be the substance; the
latter the shadow. (1759: VI.ii §4)
Smith continues to describe how sympathy is felt most readily for those
we know best:
After himself, the members of his own family, those who usually live in
the same house with him, his parents, his children, his brothers and sisters,
are naturally the objects of his warmest affections. They are naturally and
usually the persons upon whose happiness or misery his conduct must have
the greatest influence. He is more habituated to sympathize with them. He
knows better how every thing is likely to affect them, and his sympathy with
them is more precise and determinate, than it can be with the greater part
of other people. It approaches nearer, in short, to what he feels for himself.
(1759: VI.ii §5)
He explains that we have more sympathy for our dependent children
than for our parents, who have cared for and nourished us earlier (1759:
VI.II §6). And old friends are strong friends; sympathy is strengthened by
habituation (1759: VI.ii §7 & VI.ii §8). Smith makes the leap from habituated
imagination to affection:
What is called affection, is in reality nothing but habitual sympathy. Our
concern in the happiness or misery of those who are the objects of what we
call our affections; our desire to promote the one, and to prevent the other;
are either the actual feeling of that habitual sympathy, or the necessary
consequences of that feeling. Relations being usually placed in situations
which naturally create this habitual sympathy, it is expected that a suitable
degree of affection should take place among them. (1759: VI.ii.10)
Once sympathy takes the leap to affection we have a motivation for action.
Sympathy is the foundation of rules of justice, i.e., reciprocity, which
become internalized as conscience. Our motivation is abstracted from our
private interest. We are motivated by abstractions, by what we imagine –
“reason, principle, conscience, the inhabitant of the breast, the man within,
the great judge” – to perform what Smith describes as “generous” acts:
When our passive feelings are almost always so sordid and so selfish, how
comes it that our active principles should often be so generous and so noble?
When we are always so much more deeply affected by whatever concerns
ourselves, than by whatever concerns other men; what is it which prompts
the generous, upon all occasions, and the mean upon many, to sacrifice
their own interests to the greater interests of others? It is not the soft power
of humanity, it is not that feeble spark of benevolence which Nature has
lighted up in the human heart, that is thus capable of counteracting the
strongest impulses of self-love. It is a stronger power, a more forcible motive,
which exerts itself upon such occasions. It is reason, principle, conscience,
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DAVID M. LEVY AND SANDRA J. PEART
the inhabitant of the breast, the man within, the great judge and arbiter of
our conduct. (1759: III.i §46)
Smith has not yet told us much about “generosity”, so to that we turn.
Smith’s construction is wider than Hume’s because Smith builds two
concepts – justice and generosity – from the same foundations. This he
explains in Part IV of TMS, where he distinguishes his account from that
of Hume, “an ingenious and agreeable philosopher”.
The same ingenious and agreeable author who first explained why utility
pleases, has been so struck with this view of things, as to resolve our whole
approbation of virtue into a perception of this species of beauty which results
from the appearance of utility. . . . But still I affirm, that it is not the view of
this utility or hurtfulness which is either the first or principal source of our
approbation and disapprobation. (1759: IV.i §14)
Justice has been considered; now generosity is explained:
Humanity, justice, generosity, and public spirit, are the qualities most useful
to others. Wherein consists the propriety of humanity and justice has been
explained upon a former occasion, where it was shewn how much our esteem
and approbation of those qualities depended upon the concord between the
affections of the agent and those of the spectators. (1759: IV.i §20)
The propriety of generosity and public spirit is founded upon the same
principle as that of justice (1795: IV.i. §21).
The difference between generosity and humanity is gendered:
Generosity is different from humanity. Those two qualities, which at first
sight seem so nearly allied, do not always belong to the same person.
Humanity is the virtue of a woman, generosity of a man. The fair-sex,
who have commonly much more tenderness than ours, have seldom so
much generosity. That women rarely make considerable donations, is an
observation of the civil law. (1759: IV.i §21)
Smith’s term “fellow-feeling” catches the self-motivating aspect of his
concept of humanity. He is explicit that we require neither reflection nor
judgment to be motivated by humanity:9
Humanity consists merely in the exquisite fellow-feeling which the spectator
entertains with the sentiments of the persons principally concerned, so as to
grieve for their sufferings, to resent their injuries, and to rejoice at their good
fortune. The most humane actions require no self-denial, no self-command,
no great exertion of the sense of propriety. They consist only in doing what
this exquisite sympathy would of its own accord prompt us to do (1759: IV.i
§21).
Generosity is action which is not self-motiving in this sense but which
would be approved of by a spectator.
9
The importance of judgment for Smith’s account has been emphasized by Haakonssen
(1981).
SYMPATHY AND APPROBATION IN HUME AND SMITH
339
But it is otherwise with generosity. We are never generous except when in
some respect we prefer some other person to ourselves, and sacrifice some
great and important interest of our own to an equal interest of a friend or of a
superior. The man who gives up his pretensions to an office that was the great
object of his ambition, because he imagines that the services of another are
better entitled to it; the man who exposes his life to defend that of his friend,
which he judges to be of more importance; neither of them act from humanity,
or because they feel more exquisitely what concerns that other person than
what concerns themselves. They both consider those opposite interests, not
in the light in which they naturally appear to themselves, but in that in which
they appear to others. To every bystander, the success or preservation of this
other person may justly be more interesting than their own; but it cannot
be so to themselves. When to the interest of this other person, therefore,
they sacrifice their own, they accommodate themselves to the sentiments
of the spectator, and by an effort of magnanimity act according to those
views of things which, they feel, must naturally occur to any third person
(1759: IV.i §21).
Smith gives an example of an action contrary to material interest in
which the motivation is by an abstraction. One might note that such an act
is not something specified in a contract; thus, failure to perform would not
be an act of injustice:
The soldier who throws away his life in order to defend that of his officer,
would perhaps be but little affected by the death of that officer, if it should
happen without any fault of his own; and a very small disaster which
had befallen himself might excite a much more lively sorrow. But when
he endeavours to act so as to deserve applause, and to make the impartial
spectator enter into the principles of his conduct, he feels, that to every body
but himself, his own life is a trifle compared with that of his officer, and that
when he sacrifices the one to the other, he acts quite properly and agreeably
to what would be the natural apprehensions of every impartial bystander.
(1759: IV. i §21)
If Smith’s sympathy forms the building blocks of moral consciousness
which allows for motivation by abstraction this may provide a “moral”
answer to the “sensible knave” problem, to which we now turn.
3. THE SENSIBLE KNAVE
The problem of the “sensible knave” is the problem of whether honesty is
always the best policy. Here is Hume’s statement of the issue:
And though it is allowed, that, without a regard to property, no society
could subsist; yet, according to the imperfect way in which human affairs
are conducted, a sensible knave, in particular incidents, may think, that an
act of iniquity or infidelity will make a considerable addition to his fortune,
without causing any considerable breach in the social union and confederacy.
That honesty is the best policy, may be a good general rule; but is liable to
many exceptions: And he, it may, perhaps, be thought, conducts himself
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DAVID M. LEVY AND SANDRA J. PEART
with most wisdom, who observes the general rule, and takes advantage of
all the exceptions. (1751: 155)
To this, Hume provides two solutions. The first is that moral considerations
may frequently overwhelm pecuniary ones:
But in all ingenuous natures, the antipathy to treachery and roguery is too
strong to be counterbalanced by any views of profit or pecuniary advantage.
Inward peace of mind, consciousness of integrity, a satisfactory review of our
own conduct; these are circumstances very requisite to happiness, and will
be cherished and cultivated by every honest man, who feels the importance
of them. (1751: 155–56)
This argument does not, of course, say that unjust acts are irrational; it
says that they are costly.
Continuing in a new paragraph Hume makes a different case,
appealing to the vantage point of an honest man who views the behavior
of sensible knave:
Such a one has, besides, the frequent satisfaction of seeing knaves, with all
their pretended cunning and abilities, betrayed by their own maxims; and
while they propose to cheat with moderation and secrecy, a tempting incident
occurs, nature is frail, and they give into the snare; whence they can never
extricate themselves, without a total loss of reputation, and the forfeiture of
all future trust and confidence with mankind. (1751: 156)
Hume’s “evolutionary” solution to the sensible knave is to suggest that it is
in fact difficult to be a “sensible” knave. Instead, as time goes by one becomes
a knave, someone who routinely acts unjustly, and who therefore acquires
the reputation of being a knave. Such a person earns the disapprobation
from his peers that a knave deserves.
Looking at this argument from a modern game-theoretic point of
view, Hume has made the transition from a one-shot game in which one
selects decisions, e.g. Trade or Grab, to an evolutionary game in which one
selects strategies (Maynard Smith 1982). The symmetry of the “sensible
knave” problem opens the door for the consideration of repeated games
(e.g. Axelrod 1984; Congleton and Vanberg 2001), in which a strategy is
selected as the one that maximizes material income over some specified
time horizon.
Characteristically, evolutionary accounts shy away from introducing
considerations of time discounting as a complicating dimension. Although
we have nothing to say about time discount in this context, we shall
consider another complication, that of human sympathy, which twentiethcentury evolutionary accounts also neglect.10
10
Since, for Smith, sympathy is the result of an act of the imagination, it is a straightforward
application of his analysis – but not that of Hume’s – to consider sympathy with the future
self, i.e. time preference.
SYMPATHY AND APPROBATION IN HUME AND SMITH
341
4. ANOTHER RATIONAL SPECIES
In the context of interactions among equals, Hume solves the “sensible
knave” problem. But what of interactions among unequals? Hume poses
this as a problem of interactions between two rational species. First, he
presents a case in which inferiority is a fact:
Were there a species of creatures, intermingled with men, which, though
rational, were possessed of such inferior strength, both of body and mind,
that they were incapable of all resistance, and could never, upon the highest
provocation, make us feel the effects of their resentment; the necessary
consequence, I think, is, that we should be bound, by the laws of humanity,
to give gentle usage to these creatures, but should not, properly speaking,
lie under any restraint of justice with regard to them, nor could they possess
any right or property, exclusive of such arbitrary lords. Our intercourse
with them could not be called society, which supposes a degree of equality;
but absolute command on the one side, and servile obedience on the other.
Whatever we covet, they must instantly resign: Our permission is the only
tenure, by which they hold their possessions: Our compassion and kindness
the only check, by which they curb our lawless will: And as no inconvenience
ever results from the exercise of a power, so firmly established in nature, the
restraints of justice and property, being totally useless, would never have
place in so unequal a confederacy. (1751: 88)
As evidence that his conclusion is well-grounded, Hume cites the behavior
of humans with regard to animals:
This is plainly the situation of men, with regard to animals; and how far
these may be said to possess reason, I leave it to others to determine. (1751:
88)11
Hume then moves the argument from a fact of racial superiority to a
fact of European technological superiority that motivates a belief in racial
superiority:
The great superiority of civilized EUROPEANS above barbarous INDIANS,
tempted us to imagine ourselves on the same footing with regard to them,
11
“We are conscious, that we ourselves, in adapting means to ends, are guided by reason
and design, and that ’tis not ignorantly nor casually we perform those actions, which tend
to self-preservation, to the obtaining pleasure, and avoiding pain. When therefore we see
other creatures, in millions of instances, perform like actions, and direct them to like ends,
all our principles of reason and probability carry us with an invincible force to believe
the existence of a like cause . . . The resemblance betwixt the actions of animals and those
of men is so entirely in this respect, that the very first faction of the first animal we shall
please to pitch on, will afford us an incontestable argument for the present doctrine” (1978:
176).
There is an important argument in the economics literature about property and animals.
Smith denies that any “race” of animals other than people has contracts or property.
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DAVID M. LEVY AND SANDRA J. PEART
and made us throw off all restraints of justice, and even of humanity, in our
treatment of them. (1751: 89)
In this second form of the “Other Rational Species” problem, there may
be no real difference between species but the supposedly superior race
possesses sufficient power to do as it will.12
There is something very disturbing about Hume’s conclusion, and this
in part prompted Thomas Reid’s response on the matter. Reid saw Hume’s
argument as a Hobbesian claim that “right” comes from might.13 More
problematical, Hume sees no way around his conclusion that there would
be no justice or trade between superior and inferior. We suggest next that
Smith’s construction of sympathy, in particular the role of generosity, may
yield a different conclusion to Hume’s other rational species problem.
5. KATALLACTIC RATIONALITY, TRADE AND RACE
Although various technical methods have been adopted for disguising
the problem, there is an obvious prisoner’s dilemma in the attempt to
explain trade.14 As Hume noted (above, section 3), while it is in the interest
of the traders considered together to trade, it may be in an individual’s
interest to grab. To consider whether Hume’s moral attenuation holds in
12
13
14
Hume also moves the argument to gender (1751: 89). Since he suggests the outcome in this
case will differ from the first two cases, we set aside this consideration. Peart and Levy
(2005) discuss the problem in some detail.
“If Mr HUME had not owned this sentiment as a consequence of his Theory of Morals, I
should have thought it very uncharitable to impute it to him. However, we may judge of
the Theory by its avowed consequence. For there cannot be better evidence, that a theory
of morals, or of any particular virtue, is false, than when it subverts the practical rules of
morals. This defenceless species of rational creatures, is doomed by Mr. HUME to have no
rights. Why? Because they have no power to defend themselves. Is not this to say, That right
has its origin from power; which, indeed, was the doctrine of Mr. HOBBES. And to illustrate
this doctrine, Mr HUME adds, That as no inconvenience ever results from the exercise of a
power, so firmly established in nature, the restraints of justice and property being totally
useless, could never have place in so unequal a confederacy; and, to the same purpose,
he says, that the female part of our own species, owe the share they have in the rights of
society, to the power which their address and their charms give them. If this be sound
morals, Mr HUME’S Theory of Justice may be true” Reid (1788: 437–8)
Reid may have misunderstood both Hume and Hobbes. For Hobbes, right is not a
matter of strength since all men are more or less equally strong (Hobbes 1651: 183).
Ali Khan has explained to us that general equilibrium theory characteristically assumes
the principle of “individual rationality” by which is meant that an individual will not
voluntarily move from higher to lower indifference curves. Of course an individual does
not want to move to lower indifference curves. In terms of the prisoner’s dilemma game, this
blocks the off-diagonal elements. The question is whether sufficient social rationality, i.e.
the existence of property rights and the like, prevent this from happening. This discussion
grew out of our participation in the Summer Institute for the History of Economics at
George Mason University.
SYMPATHY AND APPROBATION IN HUME AND SMITH
343
the Other Rational Species problem, we pose the problem first as a one-shot
prisoner’s dilemma game in which each player can trade or grab.
We consider two games, one which allows reciprocity and one which
does not. We have seen that, for Smith, reciprocity yields just actions,
and justice and generosity share the same foundation since the actor
is accorded approbation in both cases by the imagined spectator. Thus,
in a game without reciprocity, we consider whether generosity might
offer the solution which justice offers in reciprocal situations. While
contemporary economists, puzzled by the persistence of cooperation in
contra-theoretical situations, take reciprocity as primitive, Smith’s account
predicts generosity outside of reciprocity situations.
Prefatory to his section on justice and remorse (1759: II), Smith
emphasizes reciprocity: “As every man doth, so shall it be done to him,
and retaliation seems to be the great law which is dictated to us by Nature”
(1759: II. ii §10).
The norm of reciprocity is embodied in rules of justice, so Smith gives
the disapprobation one feels from violating these rules great stress. In the
next passage we quote, Smith describes how a moral agent – someone
who has learned to view his past actions with the gaze of a disinterested
spectator – will view his past violations of the norms of justice:
The violator of the more sacred laws of justice can never reflect on the
sentiments which mankind must entertain with regard to him, without
feeling all the agonies of shame, and horror, and consternation. When his
passion is gratified, and he begins coolly to reflect on his past conduct, he
can enter into none of the motives which influenced it. They appear now as
detestable to him as they did always to other people. (1759: II. ii §13)
Here Smith breaks apart one agent into intertemporal slices, and the past
actor is judged by the present spectator who has inherited his skin. And
since the present actor knows that his choice will be judged by a future
spectator, he will take into account the future approbation/disapprobation
which follow from his choice.
Thus, we can sketch a “moral” approach to the prisoner’s dilemma
by introducing approbation to define katallactic rationality, and we show
that it can deal with the asymmetric situation of the other rational race.
The evolutionary approach to prisoner’s dilemma issues is to introduce
repeated games and change from selecting choices to selecting strategies.
This is in accord with Hume’s own insight into the “sensible knave.” We
consider Hume’s intuition that this will not work for the other rational
race problem.
We require a modest piece of notation to define a concept of “katallactic
rationality” where an agent is motivated by both material income and
approbation. We use X for material income with subscripts marking states
of the world, A for approbation with kindred subscripts. The necessary
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DAVID M. LEVY AND SANDRA J. PEART
condition of katallactic rationality (KR) we require is that one does not
turn down a bundle with both more expected material income and more
expected approbation (Levy 1999b). A bundle is KR if no other bundle
dominates it in the space of both material income and approbation.
As noted above, Smith claims that a reciprocity norm is central
to justice. The traditional prisoner’s dilemma logic makes it easy to
operationalize such a reciprocity norm: if there are two choices confronting
each of two individuals, no less approbation is earned when their strategies
match – the diagonal elements of the prisoner’s dilemma – than when
their strategies do not match – the off-diagonal elements. We let A1 be the
approbation from reciprocal strategies and A0 be the approbation from
non-reciprocal strategies and we require that A1 ≥ A0 .
It is straightforward to add the case of three levels of approbation where
the approbation differs in the diagonal elements, e.g. the approbation
from both trading is higher than the approbation from both grabbing.
This specification would be a natural way to handle the complication
that approbation is sensitive to income so that the higher income from
co-operation also brings higher approbation. In Wealth of Nations, Smith
explained people’s willingness to gamble in terms of the approbation
associated with winning a large number lottery (Levy 1999a). In terms
of Smith’s moral writings, the consideration that higher income brings
higher approbation occurs most dramatically in the final edition of TMS,
the one which Smith revised after WN. Here, Smith worries about the
possibility that wicked gambles which are immensely profitable if won
would be approved by partial spectators. He emphasizes the importance
of not being distracted by what we would call “outliers” today, but rather
to focus on the center of the population (Levy 1995).
The condition that A1 = A0 – which we allow – corresponds to the case
where approbation is not in fact part of the game. We suppose that this
condition occurs for Hume in the rational species case, when the agents
regard themselves as different and unconnected races. If I believe you are
a dog and I am a cat, I hardly care about your opinion of me, and vice
versa. The condition A1 > A0 corresponds to the case where approbation
is earned by, and only by, the relation between one’s play and that of the
other players. We suppose that this condition occurs in Smith’s case, when
the agents regard themselves as equally deserving of sympathy.15
We consider two individuals with two strategies: “Trade” and “Grab.”
We depart from the convention by adding the approbation from the
spectator’s judgment produced by a reciprocity norm.
Matrix 1 contains the familiar prisoner’s dilemma where the usual
ranks of income from various decisions – 4 > 3 > 2 > 1 – are supplemented
by the approbation one obtains from following a norm of reciprocity. Thus,
15
The internalization of reciprocity means that monitoring issues are automatically solved.
SYMPATHY AND APPROBATION IN HUME AND SMITH
Column Trade
Column Grab
Row Trade
(3, A1 ), (3, A1 )
(1, A0 ), (4, A0 )
Row Grab
(4, A0 ), (1, A0 )
(2, A1 ), (2, A1 )
345
MATRIX 1: Prisoner’s Dilemma material income and approbation
if both players Trade then both will receive 3 units of income and A1 of
approbation. If both players Grab then although their income falls to 2 each,
the approbation is unchanged because they have acted in accord with the
reciprocity norm. However, in the off-diagonal cells, the reciprocity norm
is violated and both parties are judged harshly. While the one who Grabs
might be judged a “ruffian,” the one who continues to Trade is judged a
“sucker”.16
Is KR satisfied by the two strategies? The game being symmetric, we
need only consider one player. Let us suppose that the player believes that
the probability of his partner “Trading” is p and that he is well-enough
informed to believe that the probability of “Grabbing” is therefore 1 − p.
We can solve for his expected income (EX) and the expected approbation
(EA) of the two strategies:
EX(Trade) = pA3 + (1 − p)A1; EA(Trade) = pA1 + (1 − p)AA0 .
EX(Grab) = pA4 + (1 − p)A2; EA(Grab) = pA0 + (1 − p)AA1 .
There are two interesting cases – A1 = A0 and A1 > A0 – which we consider
in turn.
Case 1. A1 = A0 . For any p, 1 ≥ p ≥ 0, only Grab satisfies KR. Grab
always has more expected income and never has any less approbation
than Trade, so it satisfies KR. And, importantly, Trade does not. Thus,
dogs who cannot acquire approbation in their dealings with strange dogs
cannot trade. Nor, by this argument, will people who find themselves in a
prisoner’s dilemma situation where they cannot acquire approbation. Of
course, in an experimental context, it might take subjects time to realize
that this is how the game works.
This result is unsurprising. Once we eliminate the possibility that
approbation can be acquired, we collapse the game to the neo-classical
commonplace and, from the collapse, we obtain the canonical result.
Without approbation acquisition, there is no trade.
16
This argument supposes that the income gain from moving from (in our notation) 3 to 4 is
not large enough to move one up social ranks. If this rank increase were to happen, then
the approbation from the gain in income might well cover the loss in approbation from
the violation of the reciprocity norm. It is a grim proverb of statecraft that treason never
prospers because if it does “none dare call it treason.”
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DAVID M. LEVY AND SANDRA J. PEART
Column Trade
Column Grab
Row Trade
(3, A1 ), (3, A1 )
(1, A0 ), (4, A0 )
Row Grab
–
–
MATRIX 2: Other Rational Race Material Income and Approbation.
Case 2. A1 > A0 . For any p, 1 ≥ p ≥ 0, Grab satisfies KR since Grab
always has more expected income than Trade. What about Trade? Consider
the case of p = 1; one actor is sure that the other actor will Trade. In this
situation Trade is also KR: Trade obtains more expected approbation than
Grab because by assumption A1 > A0 . To expand the range of KR for all
non-zero p, all that needs to be done is to increase A1 /A0 appropriately.
Trade is possible because approbation can offset material income. Of course
at p = 0 Grab will remain uniquely KR.
Now, to consider Hume’s other rational race problem we suppose that
it is common knowledge that only one player can obtain more material
income by grabbing. Since one player is physically and intellectually
inferior to the other, they cannot grab, or make a credible threat to grab,
from the stronger. The column player can either trade or grab, but the row
player can only offer to co-operate. If the game were restricted to material
income then obviously the column player would grab, as Hume predicts.
However, with approbation the game changes. If approbation comes from
generosity and extends to those unlike us – as above – then the offer to
trade is KR for the reason given above.
So what does the addition of approbation do for us? If we believe
that another is “a man and a brother” equally deserving of approbation,
then generosity with the other rational race is a way by which we
earn approbation. We become moral agents. Thus Smith’s wide notion
of sympathy – whereby physical and intellectual differences might be
overcome – may make it rational to enter into market relationships with
the weaker race, to treat them as equals. The first steps toward justice might
well be through generosity. The symmetry in Matrix 1 offers material gains
for “long-run” trade; the asymmetry in Matrix 2 offers none. All there is
in Matrix 2 is moral motivation. If the only difference between the column
and the row player is technology, this moral belief might well turn Matrix 2
into Matrix 1. Believing in equality might make it so.
6. CONCLUSION: TRADING FOR APPROBATION
We have argued from the pieces of Smith’s system that, because of Smith’s
conception of sympathy and approbation as internal to the individual, he
SYMPATHY AND APPROBATION IN HUME AND SMITH
347
would give a different answer to Hume’s other rational species than would
Hume himself. This suggests that in Smith’s moral system we may find a
willingness to pay material income to satisfy moral obligation or to gain
abstract rewards.
In Smith’s terminology generosity may emerge before contractual
justice is defined. A famous argument in Theory of Moral Sentiments makes
this precise case. Here is Smith’s statement which contains a strong form
of the second of Hume’s other rational species problem. First, consider a
“man of humanity” – who is unusually sensitive to fellow-feeling – and a
distant race. Distant people are really nothing to him, although he might
pretend otherwise:
Let us suppose that the great empire of China, with all its myriads of
inhabitants, was suddenly swallowed up by an earthquake, and let us
consider how a man of humanity in Europe, who had no sort of connexion
with that part of the world, would be affected upon receiving intelligence
of this dreadful calamity. He would, I imagine, first of all, express very
strongly his sorrow for the misfortune of that unhappy people, he would
make many melancholy reflections upon the precariousness of human life,
and the vanity of all the labours of man, which could thus be annihilated in
a moment. He would too, perhaps, if he was a man of speculation, enter into
many reasonings concerning the effects which this disaster might produce
upon the commerce of Europe, and the trade and business of the world
in general. And when all this fine philosophy was over, when all these
humane sentiments had been once fairly expressed, he would pursue his
business or his pleasure, take his repose or his diversion, with the same ease
and tranquillity, as if no such accident had happened. The most frivolous
disaster which could befal himself would occasion a more real disturbance.
If he was to lose his little finger to-morrow, he would not sleep to-night; but,
provided he never saw them, he will snore with the most profound security
over the ruin of a hundred millions of his brethren, and the destruction of
that immense multitude seems plainly an object less interesting to him, than
this paltry misfortune of his own. (1759: III. i §46)
Smith has considered a “man of humanity” who has no fellow-feeling
with distant people, perhaps because his sympathy toward them is not
habitual. From this we know that any act to save them is not self-motivated
by material considerations of his own or the reflection of those with whom
he shares feeling. Would he act on this interest? He holds another species
in his hand. Will he pay something – give up his finger – to save them?
Smith’s answer echoes across the century:
To prevent, therefore, this paltry misfortune to himself, would a man of
humanity be willing to sacrifice the lives of a hundred millions of his
brethren, provided he had never seen them? Human nature startles with
horror at the thought, and the world, in its greatest depravity and corruption,
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DAVID M. LEVY AND SANDRA J. PEART
never produced such a villain as could be capable of entertaining it. (1759:
III. i §46)
Smith takes his answer to the second form of Hume’s Other Rational
Species problem as illustrating the conclusion of his system in which
man becomes a moral agent by earning the approbation that comes from
recognizing we are all equally deserving of sympathy. As noted above,
generosity can come when both fellow-feeling and justice fail:
But what makes this difference? When our passive feelings are almost always
so sordid and so selfish, how comes it that our active principles should often
be so generous and so noble? When we are always so much more deeply
affected by whatever concerns ourselves, than by whatever concerns other
men; what is it which prompts the generous, upon all occasions, and the
mean upon many, to sacrifice their own interests to the greater interests of
others? It is not the soft power of humanity, it is not that feeble spark of
benevolence which Nature has lighted up in the human heart, that is thus
capable of counteracting the strongest impulses of self-love. It is a stronger
power, a more forcible motive, which exerts itself upon such occasions. It is
reason, principle, conscience, the inhabitant of the breast, the man within,
the great judge and arbiter of our conduct. It is he who, whenever we are
about to act so as to affect the happiness of others, calls to us, with a voice
capable of astonishing the most presumptuous of our passions, that we
are but one of the multitude, in no respect better than any other in it; and
that when we prefer ourselves so shamefully and so blindly to others, we
become the proper objects of resentment, abhorrence, and execration. It is
from him only that we learn the real littleness of ourselves, and of whatever
relates to ourselves, and the natural misrepresentations of self-love can be
corrected only by the eye of this impartial spectator. It is he who shows
us the propriety of generosity and the deformity of injustice; the propriety of
resigning the greatest interests of our own, for the yet greater interests of
others, and the deformity of doing the smallest injury to another, in order to
obtain the greatest benefit to ourselves. It is not the love of our neighbour,
it is not the love of mankind, which upon many occasions prompts us to
the practice of those divine virtues. It is a stronger love, a more powerful
affection, which generally takes place upon such occasions; the love of what
is honourable and noble, of the grandeur, and dignity, and superiority of our
own characters. (1759: III. i §46, emphasis added)
For Smith, people’s revealed preferences paint a more pleasant picture
of human nature than what we know of their interior life.
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